


If You Meet The Buddha On The Road

by stoprobbers



Category: Doctor Who, Fringe
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1784206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is more than one of everything.<br/>Fringe/Doctor Who crossover. TenII/Rose, Peter/Olivia. Working knowledge of the entirety of Fringe strongly recommended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Time

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to stress again that a working knowledge of ALL seasons of Fringe is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED. First, because you will really have no idea what half of this fic even means. Second, because otherwise there will be some major Fringe spoilers and you should just go watch Fringe instead, because it's awesome, and you shouldn't be spoiled for it.
> 
>  
> 
> If you read and are confused, I warned ya.

"It's a bit… different."  
  
The Doctor stares at the Statue of Liberty from his vantage point on the viewing deck of the zeppelin. Next to him Rose slips a hand onto the small of his back, catching the bottom of his jumper as she leans her head against his shoulder.  
  
"Isn't it? Every time I see it is just seems so wrong."  
  
The gleam of the deep, polished copper dulls for a moment as the sun passes behind a cloud. The Doctor looks with a mix of horror and fascination as light flares in his field of vision, the sun revealed again.  
  
"It is wrong," he manages after a moment. "Everything about it is wrong. I was in New York, you know, with Martha, during the Great Depression, and that bright green beacon in the harbor, that was how some of those men kept themselves going! Lady Liberty, stalwart and true, and  _green_. And _not_  all metallic!"  
  
"I know," she shakes her head and he wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer, "I think it's ugly. 'Course, I don't get much of a say in it. Independence in 1776 as at home."  
  
"That's the colonists for you," he leans down and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Are we almost there? I am tired of being on this damn ship. Holiday by blimp is a nice novelty and all that but you'd think you lot would still have pursued commercial airplanes like normal people. You're decades behind."  
  
"Never thought I'd miss Heathrow so much. And we've got about twenty minutes left. Mum and Pete booked us on one that docks on the Empire State Building."  
  
"Well," he murmurs, turning more fully towards her and pulling her hips close to his, "since we're both officially,  _forcibly_ , off the clock and stuck on yet another zeppelin that moves far too slowly, I can think of a few ways to kill some time…"  
  
He is hoping for a different response — something a bit more enthusiastic, perhaps, involving kissing and him getting at least a hand up her skirt–but she bursts into laughter instead. He considers her smile and the crinkles at the corners of her eyes and thinks maybe this is better.  
  
"That was terrible," she giggles into his chest, wrapping him more fully in a hug. "Possibly the worst line you've ever tried out. That's impressive, Doctor."  
  
"That's me; so impressive." He starts dotting kisses on the curve of her jaw. She tucks her shoulder up, squirming in delight and a halfhearted attempt to get him to stop.  
  
"You're gonna miss the best bit," she warns, turning her head towards the window, trying to get him to look. He takes advantage of the space created and starts working on her neck instead.  
  
"Show it to me later."  
  


***

  
  
Rose considers him from the foot of their bed; sprawled out on his back with the sheets tangled up between his thighs, fast asleep. She wonders, sometimes, if he's aware of how much time she spends just looking at him, memorizing skin, freckles, and hair, angles of knees and hips in repose, and the new wrinkles that appear slowly over time on his face. In her old life she'd thought a lot about him naked, about what his body looked like under layers of first leather and then wool; now she can look whenever she wants and she does, tracing the contrast between his tawny skin — recently tanned, to everyone's surprise, by an Equatorial adventure — and the crisp white of the hotel sheets. He is not covered by modesty, only by accident, and she lingers on his length, that part of him she desired for years and now has all to herself. It's only the rumbling in her stomach that prevents her from leaning down to satisfy an altogether different hunger.  
  
He seems to know it, and stirs.  
  
"You're not in bed." His voice is deep and scratchy; his eyes open in the barest of slits, not even really open at all. She knows he is not really awake.  
  
"I'm hungry."  
  
He stretches, eyes opening a little more, sheet falling away from the edge of his hips and oh, he is so very tempting. By the smirk on his lips he knows it, too.  
  
"Come back to bed."  
  
"For  _food_ ," she laughs and moves so she can bend down to kiss him. He tastes a bit like her, still, and like sleeping man. It's a heady combination.  
  
"That's what room service is for," he reminds her, reaching up to cup her cheek and keep her close. She drops a few shorter kisses on his lips and then stands. He frowns.  
  
"I'm restless and I'm hungry, I thought I'd get us a pizza. It is New York, after all."  
  
"Barely," he shifts into a half-sit, leaning against a small mountain of pillows they'd created with their rather vigorous activity earlier. "It's not that the towers are still standing, just another different decision, but all that…amber."  
  
She nods as he shudders, knowing exactly what he is feeling. Parallel worlds are different, she reminds herself constantly — England has a President, Ireland is united and independent, Germany was the neutral power that brokered peace between Austria and Poland, preventing World War II and cutting the Holocaust short, and in America there is amber, with buildings and people trapped inside like the insects she saw as a child in the British Museum. To say it is disconcerting is a massive understatement.  
  
"There shouldn't be any breaches. I– _he_  sealed them for good the last time."  
  
"Later," she shakes her head, pressing one more kiss to his mouth before standing properly and looking for her shoes. "We are on holiday and I am starving. Toppings?"  
  
"Whatever you like, Rose Tyler," he says with a wave of his hand, drawing the sheet more fully over his body with a yawn. "Ugh, jetlag. Or zeppelin-lag? Either way, this is highly undignified and I am quite against it. Time lords do not get jetlag."  
  
"I'll take that under advisement," she chuckles as she pulls on her trainers. "Do me a favor, don’t get dressed while I’m gone?"  
  
"Highly hypocritical coming from you, dressed as you are, but I suppose I can accommodate."  
  
"I'll be back before you know it. I love you," she adds as she slips out the door. Just before it closes she can hear his reply in kind, and smiles. It always makes her smile.  
  
The hotel her parents booked for them is very posh, in lower Manhatan, and the streets are as busy and bustling as in any movie or television show she'd ever seen in this world or hers. She'd been to New York a handful of times for work before the dimension cannon and her new new new (and improved) Doctor, but it had been a background blur then, a setting for work not a destination unto itself. Now, on holiday and free of Torchwood for a week, she stops and takes it in, the overwhelming wave of sound and light and scent, of car exhaust and news broadcasts on billboards and overworked Americans shouting for taxis. She's so busy taking it all in she doesn't even notice the woman until she runs right into her.  
  
"Oh!" they gasp at the same time, Rose's hands automatically grasping the woman's upper arms to steady them both before they fall.  
  
"I'm sorry–" Rose says and then suddenly registers the sight before her. The woman is pale and shaking, green eyes wide with fear, long red ( _dyed_? she wonders, fancying herself a bit of an expert) hair wet and stringy, and dressed only in a flimsy hospital gown. Everything about her seems to be on alert, ready to run, or more likely to fight, at a moment's notice. In one hand she is gripping a gun so tightly her knuckles are white.  
  
"Let me go," the woman bites out, voice firm but very soft. The gun remains pointed at the ground.  
  
"Are you all right?" Rose asks, loosening her grip but not letting go just yet. Adrenaline floods her, years of Torchwood training and TARDIS travel taking over. "Has someone hurt you?"  
  
"Please, I have to go, I have to get home."  
  
"Do you need help? I can–"  
  
"Please!" the woman practically shouts and there's something in her voice that Rose knows all too well, the sound of utter desperation and panic all mixed together into nightmarish claustrophobia. A feeling appears in the pit of her stomach, the sense that something about this woman is very wrong, does not belong. The sense that something much bigger than she expects is happening right now.  
  
"Please," the woman tries again, "I have to go home. I have to find Peter.  _Please_."  
  
Rose is too shocked to hold tight anymore and the woman wrenches easily out of her grasp. She looks around, eyes darting like a trapped animal, and then spots a line of taxis. Before Rose can muster another sound she's gone, running and then diving into the back of one of the cabs. She can see their silhouettes, the woman and the cab driver, sees the body language of confusion and then the outline of the gun, pointing at him. The cab peels away.  
  
A few minutes later, when she has shaken off her shock and the feeling of dread deep inside her and returned to the hotel room, the Doctor teases her about the lack of pizza but she finds it hard to smile back. They draw the hottest bath they can bear and order room service instead. 


	2. The Second Time

They're back in New York on business. Something strange is happening, something strange and disturbing and wrong enough to make the dimension cannon switch on for short periods of time at odd intervals. To say it's deeply disconcerting would be a massive understatement, and it's made the Doctor, in particular, quite twitchy. It hurts Rose somewhere deep in her chest to see the way his eyes skim around the room, avoiding hers, whenever they're brought in for another briefing about the short bursts of activity; it's been years now, and the idea that he doesn't know, really _know_ , how much she loves him and that she's more than content to stay by his side, by her family's side, even though this isn't her universe, it makes her burn with frustration and more than a little bit of anger. After all they've been through, she thinks, he should know better. He should know so much better.  
  
The dimension cannon's activity, it turns out, is being echoed by some very strange events in and around New York City and so, without too much of a fuss, they are handed tickets and flown across the ocean (on a plane, thankfully, this time), to assist and investigate.  
  
This time the hotel room is more Spartan and the days taken up with meetings and briefings instead of sightseeing and copious amounts of nudity, but they both feel a bit nostalgic nonetheless. The last time in New York was lovely, after all, a much-needed holiday and a bit like a honeymoon, in its own way. As they're marched through the halls of the offices and labs housed underneath the (still wrong-looking) Statue of Liberty, Rose is happily reminiscing about the afternoon they'd taken the ferry tour around Liberty Island and how they'd missed the explanation for why Lady Liberty was kept so meticulously polished because the Doctor had pressed her into one of the tiny ferry bathrooms and was busily nibbling on her left collarbone as he'd worked his hand down the front of her jeans. That had been a lovely day. As they walk, she catches his eye and he grins, winks, is clearly thinking of the same thing.  
  
"We could ask to take the ferry back," he murmurs, catching her hand and pulling her close for a moment. She grins, the tip of her tongue just barely poking through.  
  
"Gonna let me get down  _your_  trousers this time?" she teases and he chuckles, low but loud enough for their escort to glance up. Hands are immediately dropped and they both square their shoulders, injecting a little bit more authority into their walks. It seems to work, since the agent turns away.   
  
Rose is still thinking about ferry bathrooms and the mechanics of suit zippers when the woman approaches, but when she sees her the bottom drops out of her stomach.  
  
"Agent Dunham," their escort stops and greets her, stepping aside to gesture to them. "This is Agent Tyler and Dr. Noble, from Torchwood London. I believe you were briefed this morning?"  
  
"Yes, thank you," the woman responds, her voice steady and clear and nothing at all like the terrified woman Rose remembers from the street. "Pleased to meet you."  
  
She thrusts out her hand, which the Doctor shakes immediately but Rose is frozen, mouth hanging open and hand limp at her side, more than a little stunned to see this person again.   
  
"Just the Doctor, please," he says, as genial as can be, then moves aside so Rose can introduce herself. When she doesn't, when she doesn't even move, they both look at her curiously. It takes the nudge of the Doctor's foot against hers to snap her out of it.  
  
"I, uh, R-rose," she stammers, immediately reaching for Agent Dunham's still-outstretched hand, "Rose Tyler, please just call me Rose."  
  
"Well, if we're gonna be on a first-name basis you can call me Olivia," the woman answers with a smile, albeit a smile that's slightly guarded and eyes that are clouded with suspicious recognition. It disappears only a second later, her visage calm as glass once again.  
  
When Rose looks away she sees the Doctor is now the one staring at her suspiciously. She shakes her head. _I'll tell you later_.   
  
"Sorry to drag you out here," Olivia is saying, starting to walk in the opposite direction, and they follow, their escort already having disappeared into one of the many doors lining the hall. "I'm working with the Department of Defense on a special project, I just got done with them for the day. So you're here about the amber case?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking," the Doctor answers. "We've noticed a high concentration of temporal disturbances in and around New York City; the amber case could just be a coincidence but it seemed a good idea to come take a look ourselves."  
  
"See, that's interesting because the missing man was a thief, a bank robber actually. Doesn't sound very temporally anomalous to me."  
  
"Lots of things that look or sound ordinary, aren't," the Doctor warns, a warm and excited edge to his voice as they stop at the doorway of a locker room so Olivia can gather her things. She hands Rose a manila folder; it is filled with case notes, she finds upon opening.   
  
"Believe me, we know that better than most," Olivia laughs, pointing to the patch on her jacket that proudly announces FRINGE DIVISIION. The Doctor's eyes are sparkling.  
  
"I suppose you do."  
  
"I think we've met before," Rose blurts out, unable to hold it in any longer. She can't possibly understand why, but the idea that this woman and the terrified woman she saw on the street weeks ago are one and the same is eating at her like battery acid. It's even making her stomach burn.  
  
"I'm sorry?" Olivia's eyebrows knit together, confused, but that guarded look is back in her eyes.  
  
"Here, in New York. I ran into you on the street, you were–" she stops, suddenly, unsure if she should mention that she'd distinctly looked as though she'd just escaped a mental institution. Olivia's face has grown harder and her eyes more guarded while the Doctor looks nakedly curious, and she decides against it. "You said you were looking for a man named Peter. Did you find him?"  
  
There is a silence, a gap so small as to be barely noticeable but to Rose it feels like years are passing.   
  
"I don't know a Peter," Olivia finally replies, only the barest tremor in her voice. "I certainly haven't been looking for him. You must be thinking of someone else; I've never met you before."  
  
"You're sure?" Rose can't help but ask, every cell in her body protesting that no, she  _has_  met this woman before, wet and shaking and holding a gun in a white knuckled grip, terrified and lost and desperately in need. She'd met her for a minute, maybe, probably even less, but it had shaken her and it was shaking her again, this overwhelming feeling that this woman was Wrong and also Important. If the Doctor could see her thoughts right now, he'd make a joke about her spidey sense tingling, but it was more than a tingle, it was a burn. A burn she really, really didn't like.  
  
"Positive." Olivia's voice was hard and flat, broking no further argument. Rose nodded, feeling the Doctor's eyes boring into her.  
  
"Sorry, must be mistaken. You've got a twin running around Manhatan, then." Rose manages a smile, trying to play it off for a joke. Olivia's face remains hard for a long second then breaks into a smile of her own. She nods.  
  
"A doppelganger," the Doctor muses as they follow Olivia, striding purposefully down the hall once more, out of the building and towards a helicopter pad. "Everyone's got one, or five, or ten if you're me, though they don't look the same–"  
  
Rose nudges him, cutting off that train of thought before they can arouse any suspicions they really shouldn't be arousing, which truthfully is any suspicion at all. He winks at her.   
  
"How does that work?"  
  
"Don't know, haven't run into any myself, just know that if you average out genetic variability versus the number of people on the planet, the odds heavily favor each person having at least one doppelganger out there. Your DNA can only come up with so many different things until it starts repeating itself."  
  
Rose shoots him a relieved grin, a thank you for taking the heat off her, as they climb into the helicopter and strap in. The look she gets in return says they'll be talking about this later.  
  


***

  
  
In the end it turns out the thief and his brother have switched places (twice), ending a tragic tale that leaves all of them — Olivia, Rose, and the Doctor — sad and longing for home. Rose calls her mother while the Doctor hovers over her, just to say hello, while Olivia debriefs her team and arranges for their travel back home to London. Jackie doesn't understand the nature of their call, and its out-of-the-blueness makes her nervous, and in return Rose promises they’ll come over for tea when they get back. The Doctor makes faces, as he always does, but there's not much behind them. When she hangs up, Olivia is still busy and he pulls her off to the side and away from prying eyes.  
  
The first thing he does is hug her, holding her tight and close for a long moment. Then he releases her, takes half a step back and her face in his hands and kisses her, long, and slow, and sweet. Days' worth of tension flows out of her at the press of his mouth to hers, and she presses one of her hands to his chest, feeling his heartbeat through his clothes.   
  
When they part she leans up for more but the look in his eye stops her.  
  
"You're absolutely sure?" he asks, eyes darting over to where Olivia stands, watching them now with something wistful molding her features.   
  
"I am," Rose nods. She told him that first night after they'd met Olivia about the street and the hospital gown and the gun, and Peter. "I'm absolutely sure but she says it never happened and I don't think she's lying."  
  
"She's not," the Doctor affirms, "but there's something strange with her, don't you think? She's messed up a few times since we've been here, said things or done things that aren't right. You've seen the way her partners have looked at her, Agent Lee and especially Agent Francis? They've noticed. Something's off."  
  
"What do you think we should do?"  
  
He gives a grim shake of the head. "There's nothing we  _can_  do. Maybe try to get back to New York soon, check in on her. Invite her to take a holiday to London?"  
  
"She doesn't strike me as the kind of person who takes holidays," Rose murmurs. With a wry snort, he nods in agreement.  
  
"Me neither. When we get home, we should tell Pete. This case had nothing to do with any universal wall breakdowns, but she might."  
  
"Why do you say that?"  
  
"Can't you feel it?" he asks. "There's an energy about her, different and out of place. Not unlike your energy, or your mums, though she doesn't seem quite as shrieky–"  
  
"Stay on topic please," she quips primly. Something very soft and warm comes into his eyes.  
  
"Rose Tyler, I am  _always_  on topic."  
  
He leans down and kisses her again and her whole soul wrenches to the side, wanting very badly not to be here but back in their room, out of their clothes, maybe in a hot shower or buried under the covers, generating their own heat. Something about this trip — the case, the place, Olivia herself — has made her feel very sad and very alone and very, very homesick for the universe in which she was born. Perhaps the Doctor is onto something, talking about an energy that surrounds the agent. Without a doubt, she sticks out like a sore thumb.  
  
A clearing throat interrupts her thoughts and the Doctor's kiss. He pulls back and the tips of his ears are red.  
  
"Sorry," he says, sounding anything but. "Got a bit carried away there."  
  
"Sure," Olivia drawls, and points to another agent, hanging back a ways. "Tim will take you back to your hotel. I've got to head back over to Liberty Island, for that special project for the defense department. It's been a pleasure working with you."  
  
She sticks out her hand again but the Doctor doesn't shake, curiosity coming over his face.  
  
"You don’t suppose we could come with you?"  
  
"I'm sorry, this project is highly classified–"  
  
"Oh no, no," he laughs. "Not for your tests, thanks. The last time we were here we missed a whole bit on the ferry tour, were down below when we could've gotten the best view of Lady Liberty herself and I was hoping we might have the chance to see her again. Up close, you know."  
  
"You could always go on another tour."  
  
"I'm afraid not. Torchwood's not exactly interested in paying for holidays, they'll have us on the first flight home in the morning now that the case is through. No rest for the wicked, you know."  
  
"Don't I," Olivia replies, and touches her finger to her ear as she turns away. There is a quick, murmured conversation and then she turns back. "Sure, I can give you a lift, as long as you promise to stay within the visitors' area. Something, I've noticed, you're not  _particularly_  good at."  
  
Rose laughs as the Doctor holds up one of his hands like a Boy Scout.   
  
"Cross my hearts."  
  
If Olivia notices his slip she doesn't comment. Rose knows it's habit; 900 years in that head, not everything's going to change just because of a healthy injection of human DNA.   
  
Several hours later she's sitting on a bench near the entrance to the visitor's center below the statue, waiting for the Doctor, who is utterly engrossed in the historical documents on display in the lobby. The last ferry back is in twenty-eight minutes and she's tired, ready for cuddles, and bed, and a pizza delivery. She smirks to herself, wondering how people in New York manage to maintain such slim figures with so much melted cheese at their fingertips. Real New York Pizza is creeping up her list of favorite junk foods and is poised to settle at number two behind chips. She wonders what the Doctor would think of that, thinks she'll taunt him with it later, maybe while she's eating melted cheese off his bare chest. The ridiculousness of the thought makes her laugh.  
  
"Something funny?"  
  
She does not expect to hear Olivia's voice, jumps when she does. The agent is standing before her in street clothes now, hair damp and face free of makeup. She looks nervous, and shaken.  
  
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Can I, uh… Can I talk to you?"  
  
"Sure," Rose gestures to the space beside her. "Wanna sit?"  
  
"Thanks," Olivia says, and sits, and rubs her palms up and down her thighs a couple times. Rose waits.   
  
"Listen, the other day… I lied. When I said I'd never met you before. Or, at least, I think I lied. I think I remember you, just before I found the cabs, and Henry–"  
  
Rose's heart is pounding, her mouth suddenly dry, but she forces herself to speak. "It's all right–"  
  
"No, you don't understand," Olivia shakes her head, a violent movement. "I remember that, but I don't. I remember that day with you and without you, like, two days happened at the same time. I remember my sister dying and my mother holding me, rocking me as I cried, and I remember my mother dying, holding Rachel, comforting her. I remember a whole different world. But I remember this one too."  
  
Through this little speech, Olivia's voice has grown more and more strained, barely restrained panic starting to peek out around the edges and she pauses a moment, taking a deep breath, calming herself. Rose waits, still and silent. This woman reminds her of the Doctor in some ways, the walls around her high and thick. She knows better than to pry, knows that if she lets her go at her own pace, the cracks will widen of their own accord, and she'll get a glimpse inside.   
  
"I've been seeing… I've been seeing Peter. He tells me things, about the other universe, about my world. I thought it was another mental break, my own mind betraying me again. The Secretary said I might be able to do some… special things, like the other me. Their me. Who might be me-me. I don't know. I don't know, I said I'd do it, and I did and tonight when they put me in the tank… I went somewhere. I went… I think I went home. God, I think I'm losing my mind."  
  
"I don't," Rose answers with a shake of her head. "There are hundreds of parallel universes, you know."  
  
"So they say," Olivia shakes her head, "But am I from one? I remember… I think they switched, their Olivia for me. But that's insane! That is actually insane."  
  
"Doesn’t sound insane to me. Sounds like espionage, to be honest. Highly illegal espionage."  
  
"Fringe Division isn't exactly subject to the law; it's more like the law is subject to us."  
  
"That's a lot of power."  
  
"Don't I know it. Back home we're just an underfunded wing of the FBI operating out of an old lab at Harvard," She pauses, looking horrified, "Oh my god, I did it again."  
  
"You don't sound crazy to me," Rose said again, leaning in and forcing Olivia to meet her stare, "You sound scared, just like you did when I first saw you on the street. You sounded scared then, but you knew what you needed to do, knew who you needed to get home to. Believe me, I understand that, far better than you could ever imagine. You said you had to get back to Peter."  
  
"What if he's not real?"  
  
"Does he feel like he's not real?"  
  
A long, heavy pause fills the air. Finally, after what feels like forever, Olivia shakes her head.   
  
"No."  
  
"Then  _find him_. If you need help, you just call me," she reaches into her pocket and produces a card. "Me and the Doctor, we can help. I know we just met, but you can trust me this once; we can help, and we will."  
  
Olivia takes the card, holding it limply between two fingers. For a long moment neither of them say anything; Olivia looks like she is working through a very difficult math problem.  
  
"Thank you," she whispers after a moment. Rose nods and reaches out, gently taking her hand.  
  
"I'm going to tell you a secret, because you seem like the kind of person who can keep a secret. I'm not from here. This universe, I mean. I was born and raised in a different London on a different Earth, where there were no zeppelins and the Statue of Liberty was most definitely green. I'm stuck here; not by choice, not really, but I've made the best of it."  
  
"What about your Doctor?" Olivia interjects, clearly slightly horrified. Rose laughs.  
  
"That is infinitely more complicated. We made our choice, to stay here, a few years ago, after a long journey that ended in ways I never could have imagined. Before that journey, back when I first landed here… this universe was hell. I was separated from him and it was like a thousand knives jammed into my heart every moment of every day. I was dying without him. So I went out there, and I found him. I almost died I don't know how many times, but it was worth it. He's here now, and so am I, and it was all  _worth it_. If Peter means anything to you like the Doctor means to me, then finding him will be worth it. I promise."  
  
When she's done talking she pulls back, giving Olivia a little room to catch her breath, and glimpses the Doctor standing just a foot or two away, something indecipherable on his face. She grins at him, just a little quirk in the corners of her mouth, and he grins back, bigger and fuller. His eyes are full of pain but his smile is real as he mouths  _I love you_. She nods, almost imperceptibly, not wanting Olivia to realize he's listening in. Not wanting to break this moment.  
  
"Thank you," Olivia says again. "And you should tell him he's not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is."  
  
Rose laughs again at that, bright like bells, and the Doctor takes that as his cue to stride over, grab her hand, and pull her to her feet. She shakes her head at him and tries to shake him off but he holds her closer.  
  
"Ah, ah, ah," he chastises, "we're off the clock, so I can hold you as close as I want, Rose Tyler. No trying to get away."  
  
"Never," she says, grasping his hand. She doesn't miss the longing on Olivia's face as she does. "C'mon, we're gonna miss the ferry."  
  
"We've still got twelve minutes, plenty of time–"  
  
"Have a safe trip home," Olivia interrupts.   
  
"Good luck, Olivia," Rose replies. "Say hello to Peter for us, when you find him."  
  
"Don't you mean–"  
  
"No, I mean when.  _When_  you find him," she insists. Olivia nods once then turns on her heel, striding away and towards the helipad. The Doctor looks down at Rose as they start walking in the opposite direction, towards the dock.  
  
"What was that about?"  
  
"I think she just realized," Rose leans her head against his shoulder, "That she has to go home."


	3. The Third Time

Abruptly -- on a beautiful autumn day while Rose and the Doctor are tucked away under an enormous tree in Hyde Park, lazily lounging on a blanket and eating cucumber sandwiches between bouts of snogging – the Dimension Cannon turns on and stays on. 

This makes exactly no one happy. 

The first night they all scour the skies with every telescope they can get their hands on, from the kids model the Doctor bought for Tony to the deep space telescope orbiting the Earth, but all the stars are present and accounted for, at least for the moment. They do this every night for a week, first with Pete alongside them then without when Jackie demands that he actually sleep at night; old people like themselves can't afford to get less than their physician-specified seven hours. 

Every night the stars are the same, in that they are there, all of them present and accounted for. They only begin to disappear when the sun begins to rise, and every night the Doctor and Rose reluctantly pack up and stumble to bed. 

Eight days in they are both knackered but too worried to sleep in anything but fits and starts; a half hour here for Rose, fifteen minutes there for the Doctor. In bed, Rose curls tightly around him, her cheek in its familiar place on his shoulder, her fingers gripping his ribcage as if someone is readying to tear him from her arms that very moment. 

"Do you want to go back?" he asks, not for the first time in all their years in this universe. Probably not for the last either. She shakes her head furiously, feels the way his chest tightens as he fights not to laugh when her hair tickles his neck. This is no time for giggling. 

"Do you?" 

"No," he says, and their arms tighten around each other in sync. 

"Never?" 

"Never." 

"The TARDIS is there." 

"You're here." 

"I could be there, too." 

"I thought you said you didn't want to go back." 

"I'd go if you went," she sits up a little, makes eye contact. "I want to be where you are." 

His smile is tiny, but it crinkles the corners of his eyes in a way that makes her heart tug and squeeze. He is growing wrinkles there, little etchings of crows feet that she thinks makes him even more devastatingly handsome than he was the day he regenerated (or the day he grew out of a hand, too). She releases his ribcage so she can smooth a hand over his face, feeling the other lines that have started to form: crevices around his mouth from laughter, the barest valley between his eyebrows. Markings of humanity, of the life they've built together, live together. All the evidence of his permanence. When her finger brushes his lips he puckers them, pushes them out, kisses her fingertip. 

"Me too," he answers and draws her back down, into a kiss and a caress of his own. They lose track of time then, all skin and hands and warmth and blankets. When they're done – when fear and concern are soothed by love and lust – Rose drums her fingers on his bare chest, listening to him doze lightly and thinking. The gears in her head cannot stop turning; they grind with the same metallic clang as the Cannon. 

It's been months since the case in New York, almost a year since the jarring first encounter, but suddenly Rose finds herself quite unable to stop thinking about Olivia Dunham. 

Olivia Dunham who, frantic in a hospital gown, begged for help, insisting she had to find a man called Peter. 

Olivia Dunham, the confident Fringe agent in all black whose calm, efficient gaze couldn't quite mask a deep well of self-doubt and paranoia. 

Olivia Dunham, smart and savvy and unable to shake the feeling that she was from another universe and that her doppelganger had been swapped, secretly, with her as a spy. 

And what about that notion? It didn't sound so crazy to Rose then, and it still doesn't sound that crazy to her now. Pete's control of Torchwood – and his willingness to listen to both her and the Doctor – had put an end to some of Britain's nastier espionage program but she wouldn’t put it past the Americans. In fact, it seems laughably obvious that the Americans would be sending spies across the Void to the universe they were convinced had set out to destroy their own. She sympathized, really she did; things in America were so much worse than in Britain. There was so much more amber, so many more weak spots, so many more lives lost. The Americans reacted to even the most minor international problems with paranoia and militarization, too – one just had to look at their law enforcement, that Fringe Division itself, to see how far they were willing to go. And that Secretary of Defense… 

If the Americans had swapped Olivia Dunhams, sent the one from this universe over there and kept the one from over there for their own uses, how long would they need her for? Would they keep her forever? That could have been the plan – she had clearly been given a set of memories from her doppelganger's life when they had worked with her in New York, memories she was struggling against. And what of that, as well: If she was rejecting the false memories, rejecting the brainwashing, would they keep her? Did they need her? Was she special? _How_ was she special? 

The questions pile up like cars behind a highway wreck, making Rose's head swim even more. She is too tired for this but she can't tamp the thoughts, or the rising panic, down. Of all the agencies she's met all over the world, the ones who know the most about trans-universal travel were Torchwood, thanks to her and the Doctor, and then the Americans. They had assumed the Americans were far behind them (no permanent aliens, as such, to rely on), but what if they were wrong? Since when did anyone need a little alien intervention to put the world – the universe – in danger? 

They need to find Olivia Dunham. _Now_. 

"You're thinking too loud." 

The Doctor's voice startles her; she's fallen so deep into her thoughts and he's been quiet so long she assumed he had fallen asleep. He draws her back into the present and she realizes she is tense, practically shaking, and breathing hard. Adrenaline has flooded her body, pushing the effects of so little sleep into the back of her mind where it settles into a very mild, dull headache. She hopes, vaguely, that she sleeps on the plane to New York because she knows from experience that when this headache blows, it will lay her flat for days. They can't afford that, not now. 

"We need to find Olivia," she says aloud as she sits up fully. The Doctor, looking up at her drowsily through barely-open eyes, furrows his brown in confusion. 

"Olivia?" 

"Dunham. You remember, from New York? The Fringe agent. I told you, she said—" 

"—She was from another universe," the Doctor finishes for her, sitting up beside her. "You think she is?" 

"Do you think she's not?" 

"No," he says thoughtfully. "I didn't really think about it either way. How would someone from your universe end up over here without my help?"  

"You mean the Doctor's help."  

"You know what I mean." His frown is sharp; these distinctions are ones they draw only when absolutely necessary for exactly this reason. It hurts. Rose reaches out, takes his hand, an olive branch. 

"We assume the Americans don't know how to get from universe to universe," she says, gently steering them back on topic. "But do we have proof of that? You've seen it over there – they monitor, sometimes even predict, these 'fringe events' of theirs. They've got the amber. They know more than they've ever let on to us. We've been busy enough with alien threats and trying to build time travel that we haven't really been paying attention – and they've not stepped on our toes, and so we haven't stepped on theirs. I'm starting to think that's intentional. Don't draw attention, don't invite inquiry, y'know? And we've assumed that alien would be involved in any universe jumping – but why?? The universe hoppers, those horrible little lemon tarts, Torchwood made those without alien intervention. We've done it, and surely the Americans could as well." 

"But they shouldn't be able to. Trans-universal travel should be far beyond human capability in this time." 

Rose gives him a sour look. " _Different universe_." 

"In _any_ universe." 

"But Torchwood did it. And I did it." 

"Because Davros weakened the barriers between universes," he argues, shaking his head. "And before that, because of the Daleks and their ship piercing the void. Technology in this time can widen holes, but create them? No." 

"What if the hole came from the other side? From my original universe?" 

"By who? Me?" 

"Maybe?" 

"I wouldn't—" 

"Maybe you didn't know, or didn't realize! Doctor, you're not listening!" She smacks the bed instead of smacking him and purses her lips tight for a moment, breathing steadily through her nose as she gathers her thoughts and emotions. He sits silently beside her, giving her time to collect herself. She exhales a long, steady breath before she speaks again. 

"Just listen," she says softly. "Olivia told me she remembered two different worlds – one over here, one of there; two lives, two histories, but only one Peter, one thing tethering her to that other universe. What if she was, in fact, from my universe? What if she came here somehow – I don't know how or why – and they switched the Olivia over here for her? A spy, a source, a sleeper agent; if they could get someone to and from universes, they would absolutely use that to their military advantage don't you think? But is it a permanent swap? It can't be, can it? Americans sent spies to Russia, to Cuba, for _years_ in my original universe but they always brought them back – no spy is on a permanent mission. So they get the Olivia from here, swap her with the Olivia from there, but they need to get her back at some point. What if that's what happened a week ago? What if they brought her back – swapped her out, or maybe just brought their agent back and kept the Olivia I met for themselves, for experiments or information or who knows what? But in getting her back, they widen the hole they've been using just enough to set the Dimension Canon running." 

She pauses, takes a breath, examines her hands. 

"We have to find Olivia, Doctor. She's the key to all this, I really think she is. We find her, we find the hole, we can patch it. We can stop this. But it's all down to Olivia Dunham, I'd bet my life on it." 

He's been staring at her this whole time, mouth slightly agape and expression both curious and wary. She holds his gaze, trying to follow the shifts behind his eyes, and is wholly unprepared when he cups her face and swoops in to kiss her, hard. 

"Rose Tyler," he breathes against her lips before pulling back and jumping out of bed, "you are _brilliant_. C'mon, we've got to go." 

***

It takes longer to explain her ideas to Pete, and to convince him of their merit, but she does. Pete is the one who undertakes the long and, by the sound of it, frustratingly bureaucratic phone call to make an appointment with Agent Dunham in the New York Fringe Division office. They fabricate a British case, the Doctor passing notes with details composed on the fly to Pete across his desk, until the Americans agree. Out of deference to their knowledge, Pete volunteers to send his top two Torchwood agents with the case files to New York instead of taking Agent Dunham away from her _very important_ work there. The Americans agree to a meeting on Friday. Pete's secretary reserves the private jet before he is even off the phone. 

The Records and Documents Department is not exactly thrilled when they learn they have a day and a half to fabricate a case, but it's far from the worst thing the Doctor and Rose have put them through so the grumbling is kept to a minimum. 

They fly out an extra day early in hopes of doing some recognizance work – visiting Amber sites, trying a domestic hack (which will raise far fewer alarm bells than an international one) of the Fringe Division database. The Doctor thinks he can do it, but he's not entirely sure; Rose hopes he can. Any and all research they can think of to figure out how the Americans may have caused or exacerbated a breach between universes. 

The hack works, sort of. It's shut down quickly, but not before the Doctor manages to dump several gigabytes of data onto his external hard drive. For all he knows he's managed to get uniform measurements and car acquisition requests, but it's better than nothing, and the disguised IP address will send the Americans searching for a North Korean spy in their midst. Rose supposes she should feel bad, but the North Koreans have never given them a reason for sympathy. They're not quite the insane, hermetic dictatorship she knows from her original universe, but their bloodthirsty ruler's insistence on attempting to invade South Korea and China every few years – always with high casualties on both sides, always ending in failure – has done nothing to endear them to the larger world. If this sends the Americans after them, well, it could be worse. 

She thinks those things as the Doctor carefully dismantles the elaborate network he built for the hack and double checks the data is still on the hard drive, and winces a little internally. She is glad, in these moments, the other Doctor cannot see her or hear her thoughts; he probably would not approve. 

Probably. 

To celebrate _her_ Doctor's success they order pizza and eat it naked, just the way he likes. 

The next day they put on clean and crisp suits, style themselves into serious professionals, and stride into the Fringe Division's offices with two thick manila folders and their best secret agent personas on firmly. 

The bored-looking receptionist makes them wait for nearly thirty minutes before Olivia Dunham appears. 

She looks much the same – a little less thin, perhaps, hair a little bit brighter red as if her color has recently been touched up – but her stride is different, more cocky and self-assured. The woman they'd first met was confident, but this woman in front of them is almost flippant, brash, as if she's sure she's too good to give them her time but it nonetheless happy to oblige. Her smile is wider and less wavering, her eyes clearer. And, most importantly, there is no spark of recognition in her expression. 

"Agent Dunham," she says by way of greeting as they stand to meet her, sticking out her hand to shake, "Pleased to meet you, agents…?" 

"Tyler," Rose says, "Rose Tyler, and this is Doctor Noble, from Torchwood London." 

"Agent Tyler, Doctor Noble," the woman in front of them repeats, and the simple professionalism of her greeting sends chills down Rose's spine.  

"Just the Doctor, please," he murmurs as he shakes and Rose finds she very much wants to reach out and take his hand. 

"All right then," Agent Dunham replies, voice lilting with amusement, before turning and motioning for them to follow her further back into the offices. "So what can I help you with today? The Secretary said you called and asked for me specifically." 

"Yes," the Doctor says as they follow her back into the maze of desks and computer screens. "It's about – I'm sorry, do you not remember? We were here this spring, the case with the bank robbers in Amber? Temporal anomalies? We worked together on that for a few days." 

It flashes across her face for only a second, maybe less, but Rose sees it as clearly as a neon sign lighting up in the pitch black: confusion, then scrambling panic. She hasn't been briefed on that case – why would she be, such a minor case from their perspective and such a mundane inquiry from the Brits. There were probably bigger things for them to tell her upon her return, and _much_ bigger things they needed her to tell them. But in that single flashing expression, Rose knows without a shadow of a doubt: This is not the woman she has met twice before, not the woman looking for Peter, not the woman from another universe. This is the original, Pete's World's version; she is back and, if they are very, very unlucky, the Olivia they need to speak to is dead. 

In her quarter-or-so century of life, Rose Tyler has come to realize she is an incredibly lucky woman. She sends a quick prayer to the mercurial powers behind the universe for her luck to hold. 

"Oh right," she says after a pause that seems to echo. "You know, I completely forgot about that. It's been a wild summer, really crazy. Small cases like that, they slip your mind." 

"Sure, sure," the Doctor covers smoothly, and thrusts their fabricated file out to her. He rambles automatically about the fake case, the fake consult, for which Rose is powerfully glad; her brain is still stuck on the fact that this Olivia Dunham is not the one they're looking for, skipping and tripping on that like a scratched record. 

But he can only ramble for so long before she needs to jump in and just before he reaches that critical juncture – just as they're reaching Agent Dunham's office, in fact – there's an odd sort of ringing and the agent abruptly stops walking. She touches her ear instead. 

"Dunham," she says, then quickly turns away, speaking in quiet tones with her back to them. Rose exchanges a glance with the Doctor, eyebrows raised, and hopes their cover is safe. 

"I'm sorry," Agent Dunham says after a moment and another touch to her ear, "I have an urgent call. Can you wait out here? It's classified." 

She has the grace to look slightly embarrassed at that admission, but Rose and the Doctor shoo her into her office, promising they understand and don't mind. Rose is glad for the reprieve, honestly. 

When the door closes behind Agent Dunham, she draws close to the Doctor and speaks as softly as she can; they are being watched, she knows. 

"It's not her." 

"I know," he murmurs back. "She's not going to be able to help us, either." 

"Yeah," Rose sighs and says the five words she's been dreading putting voice to, even though she's been thinking it for days. "We're gonna have to jump." 

The Doctor is quiet for a long moment, shoulders tense and eyes hard, and then all of a sudden he sags, like the fight has gone out of him entirely. She looks at him curiously, eyebrows furrowed in a silent question. 

"You have to be the one to tell your mother," he says. 

***

Jackie really does not take it well. 


End file.
